Doll. // Bucky Barnes X OC

EIGHTEEN

Bucky didn't remember crossing the room.

One second he was staring at the blank screen — the echo of the gunshot still ringing in his skull — and the next his metal fist slammed into the reinforced table hard enough to spiderweb the surface.

"No," he said hoarsely. "No, no, no—"

The word tore out of him like it might rewind time.

His chest burned. His ears rang. He could still see it — the way her body jerked, the sound she made when the pain hit her faster than the fear. High in the thigh. Controlled. Intentional.

They'd done it to send a message.

And it had landed square in his ribcage.

Nat had both hands on his arm now, bracing him, grounding him before he ripped the room apart. "Buck," she said firmly. "Look at me."

He couldn't.

"She stayed awake," he said instead, voice shaking with a restraint that hurt worse than yelling. "Did you see that? She stayed conscious. She didn't give them that."

Bruce stood frozen near the console, face pale, eyes glassy. When he finally spoke, his voice broke in a way Bucky had never heard before.

"They shot my daughter."

That was when it shattered fully.

Bucky dragged a hand down his face, breath coming too fast, too shallow. Guilt coiled tight and vicious in his gut — not the old kind, not the conditioned one. This was sharper. Personal.

"They're using her to get to me," he said. "And I let it happen."

"No," Nat snapped. "Steve let it happen. HYDRA pulled the trigger."

Bucky's jaw clenched so hard it ached. "She wouldn't be there if I'd—"

Bruce cut him off, stepping closer, eyes fierce now beneath the grief. "Do not take this on yourself. You hear me? She chose you. She chose this life knowing the risks — and so did I."

That didn't make it hurt less.

Bucky turned away, pacing, metal arm whining softly with each step. His hands kept curling into fists like his body was preparing for violence it couldn't yet reach.

"They gave us twenty-four hours," he said. "Which means they're desperate."

"And desperate people make mistakes," Nat said. "We find where they're holding her."

"And when we do," Bucky replied, voice low and lethal, "I'm going through every single one of them."

No one argued.

Because they all knew — this wasn't just a rescue.

This was a reckoning.

-

Pain woke her before fear did.

It pulsed hot and deep through her thigh, each heartbeat dragging it sharper, brighter. Melany gasped, eyes snapping open, vision swimming as the world came back in jagged pieces.

Concrete floor. Cold air. The metallic tang of blood.

Her blood.

She was on her side now, restraints biting into her wrists, her leg hastily bandaged but still burning like fire under her skin. Someone had done just enough to keep her from bleeding out.

Not enough to make it stop hurting.

She swallowed hard, forcing herself to stay present. To stay awake.